Positive Revisions Show GDP Growth Through Second Quarter in US

Positive Revisions Show GDP Growth Through Second Quarter in US

And now for some good news: the US economy grew faster than originally analyzed in the second quarter of the year, with upward revisions on consumer spending and investment data and downward revisions on imports helping to push overall gross domestic product expansion at an honorable 3 percent.

The last time the US economy grew at such rate in a single quarter, it was the first quarter of 2015. More importantly, perhaps, the 3 percent jump from April to June is more than double the expansion from the period before (ending in March).

E-Trade vice president of investment strategy, Mike Loewengart comments, “The revised GDP growth rate likely comes as a sigh of relief for folks looking for further confirmation that the U.S. economy is moving along swiftly. For investors, today’s numbers punctuate a wild week of market events after a brief summer lull.”

Looking more closely at the numbers, personal consumption expenditures—a significant portion of the economy’s quarterly movement—improved 3.3 percent, which is the biggest such gain since the middle of last year. At the same time, though, exports have been revised down by about 0.4 percent while imports have updated have made up for those losses (and then some), revised to 0.5 percent.

Perhaps the best news: nonresidential fixed investments showed the biggest revision of any of the major US economic expansion components. This measurement, regarded often as a proxy for company expenditures on equipment and technology, has bumped up nearly 2 percentage points. Also, intellectual property investments grew by 3.5 percentage points over initial estimates.

Economic expansion also depends on various investments, and nonresidential fixed investments have shown slow growth, if at all, and that is not a good thing for American payrolls. With more productive employees, companies are making more money without having to have employees work extra hours. More profits (on fewer hours) means more money can be directly re-invested into raising productivity.

Plante Moran Financial Advisors chief investment officer Jim Baird notes: “In the immediate aftermath of the presidential election in November, business confidence soared, and surveys indicated a much greater willingness of businesses to ramp up capital spending budgets. While President Trump has been challenged in pushing forward his economic agenda, surging business investment is a positive sign and provides a private sector vote of confidence in the economic outlook.”

Trump Threatens to Shut Down Government over Immigration

Donald Trump’s weekend tweets include a firm warning that Congress needs to address immigration reform, including his wall, in the upcoming appropriations bill or face a September shutdown.

“I would be willing to shut down the government,” said the tweet, “if the Democrats do not give us the votes for border security which includes the wall! Must get rid of lottery system, catch-and-release, etc. and finally go to a system of immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our country.”

Trump’s tweet followed a week when Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, visited the White House to discuss funding the government. No details of those meetings were released.

Democrats have made legislating a path to citizenship for so-called “dreamers” already in the country a focal point of their immigration efforts. There are indications some Senate Republicans are open to including such a law, which would be key to any support from the Democrats.

Bold idea or more bluster?

This is not the first time Trump threatened a government shutdown over his border wall, which he considers his biggest campaign promise and a potential legacy-deciding accomplishment.

In fact, the government shut down for three days over a weekend in January, allowing it to go mostly unnoticed. In February, the government technically shut down for a few hours, while the House and Senate debated spending bills and immigration.

In April, the president threatened another shutdown if immigration and his wall were not addressed in the spending bill that included his tax cut proposals. He backed down and begrudgingly signed the legislation while warning Congress he will “never sign another bill like that” again.

Trump’s tweet puts the onus of passing immigration reform firmly on the Democrats. However, Republicans are not united when it comes to the topic, either. Last month, the Republican-led House rejected an immigration bill approved by conservatives in the Senate.

With the next Appropriations Bill due in September, Trump proposes shutting the government down two months before the mid-term elections. Publicly stating it is the Democrats’ fault might not be enough to save Republican incumbents, especially if there are well-publicized arguments among factions of the Republican Party.

Trump might feel forced to sign another spending bill he doesn’t like when faced with the predictable uproar from within Republican ranks.

What Trump wants: Trump’s vision is to build an impenetrable wall along the southern border, promote strict and quick enforcement of illegal immigration laws, and implement a merit-based immigration system. In theory, this would allow only the “best and brightest” of the world to legally enter the United States.

He wants to end the current lottery visa system, although it is unclear whether family members of those admitted on a merit system would enjoy preferred status like families have under the lottery visa program.

The president also wants to end “Catch and Release” policies, which allow illegal immigrants who are caught to go free pending a court date. Trump often says, “No one ever shows up!” despite statistics showing the opposite is true.

When the administration ordered a “no tolerance” policy to deal with illegal immigrants, jails were quickly overwhelmed and the separation of children from their incarcerated parents resulted in a logistical and public relations disaster for Trump and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Many U.S Households Still Unable To Afford Basics

Even with a growing US economy, it seems that its benefits are yet to reach many Americans. Many still can’t afford a basic middle class life. A recent study done by the United Way ALICE Project has indicated that around 51 million or 43% of the households in the country cannot afford basic necessities like food, housing, healthcare, childcare, a cell phone and transportation.

Two classes of households

The study has divided these families into two classes. The first class is made up of 16.1 million households who live in poverty and are unable to access basic life-sustaining needs. Another group has been dubbed ALICE or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. This class is just short of what is needed to live in the modern economy.

In a statement while releasing the report, Stephanie Hoopes, the director of the project said despite the economic gains made, many families are still experiencing financial hardships.

Among the states that are hard hit include Hawaii, New Mexico and California where each has 49% of their households unable to afford basic needs. North Dakota has the lowest percentage at 32%.

According to the study, many of the people that are struggling financially work as the country’s home health aides, store clerks, office assistants and child care workers. These workers earn very little income and have little savings. 66% of the country’s jobs pay below $20 per hour.

Utah has a total of 941,094 households and 10% of these are said to be living in poverty while 29% were categorized as ALICE. Cumulatively, Utah has 39% of its households struggling financially.

Raising cost of living with constant wages

According to Hoopes, wages have stagnated for long while the cost of living is going up. She adds that this has caused a lot of anger and frustration because despite being told that they are doing well, the cant feel and associate with the same. To make matters worse, many of these families are unable to save any money for the future.

Hoopes says that many people lost their savings during the recession. During the same period many people lost their jobs as many companies winded up or retrenched their workforce to adjust to the tightening economic times. During that period, many were sustained by their savings. When they were reemployed, the pay was little and unable to replenish their savings.

Job Growth Slowing, But Still Strong

Recent data shows that job growth in the United States slowed in August with employers adding only 156,000 jobs in the month. Yes, that is still a decent number—and enough to suggest most businesses are still confident of economic rebound as we approach the decade mark since the Great Recession.

But while the jobs report did not hit the 200,000 new job mark economists had expected, it did indicate that average hourly wages are up: 3 cents last month—a 2.5 percent bump to $26.39—from the same period one year ago.

Indeed.com chief economist Jed Kolko comments, “Growth was slower in August, but that’s because there were fewer gains in growing industries, not because we’re seeing more losses in shrinking industries. We’re actually at a point of unusual stability.”

Now, it is very important to note that this report does not take into any account the effects of Hurricane Harvey and the pending cleanup. The data, after all, was collected before the storm’s landfall.

And the report showed that employees actually worked a little less in August. According to the report, the average work week fell from 34.7 hours to 34.4 hours. Overall, construction, healthcare, manufacturing, and mining industries all improved, but employment fell a little in government jobs as well as information technology.

More specifically, manufacturing improved by 36,000 positions throughout the country; auto part production, computer gear, and fabricated metals leading the charge. As a matter of fact, this sector, alone, has been responsible for 155,000 jobs since last November.

Regarding August’s mostly modest progress, PNC chief economist, Gus Faucher, comments that there is no indication of serious trouble down the road. He says the labor market is tightening and that will actually make it harder for people to find available jobs.

He notes, “Businesses are seeing stronger demand, and they need more workers to keep up with that. We’re putting up more houses. We’re manufacturing more things. Consumers are buying more goods and services.”

But, there is a downside: “You’d think with businesses saying ‘we can’t hire, we can’t hire’ they’d be raising wages, but they seem reluctant to do so.”

Now, some of that might be a result of the recession but it could also be that we cheaper, younger workers who can replace the retiring baby boomer generation in the workplace.